| SPANISH RAT RAID JUNE 2007 - France, Spain | |||||||||||||
| Fantastic weather during a week when all of England was
under a foot rain. Ended the trip in Santander for a weekend of riding
fantastic roads, eating a great restuarants and drinking all kinds of
dodgy spanish beer. Photo's to follow.
|
|||||||||||||
| SPANISH RAT RAID MAY 2006 - France, Spain | |||||||||||||
| Pictures and on seat video (courtesy of Stoozing Stu's online bikecam)
coming soon. Whenever Stooz gets off his lardy arse and emails them to
me..... Until then all I've got is a little snippet of phonecam video...
|
|||||||||||||
| SPANISH RAT RAID MAY 2005 - France, Andorra, Spain | |||||||||||||
|
After a year of no touring (it's a long boring story of too much
work and not
enough play) I reluctantly agreed to join a couple of virtual biking
buddies, from www.t595.net, on a
Triumph organised ride out. I'm generally not one for riding in big
groups of people because I like hooning off on my own and doing the
whole "I stop when I want to stop and ride when I want to ride" thing:
In groups of riders I get frustrated with the number of cigarette stops,
lunch stops, drink stops, stretch the leg stops, make a phone calls
stops, pee stops and get-off-to-scratch-my-arse stops! I love this darn
Triumph and am happy sitting in the saddle and only getting off for
fuel... Anyways... before I ramble on too much... the idea of the organised trip by RAT sounded too good to be true - so I signed up. Wow! what a brilliant week of riding... I couldnt have asked for more... it's has gone straight to the top of my favourite bike trips list. Already legendary in my own mind, I was delighted to see myself in print in the official Triumph Magazine. Some details and magazine scans are here
PS: I've already signed up for May 2006 and cant wait for the time to come.... ;)
|
|||||||||||||
| BOL D'OR September 2003 - Nevers Magny Cours (again!! and as mad as last year) | |||||||||||||
 After
nearly a year I got off my fat lardy arse and
got around to editing and uploading the DVD type video of the weekends Bol madness.
If you don't want to commit to a big download then watch the teaser
Video Teaser - BolDor 2003 t595.net
Squadron
Some screen captures from the video: Some Official Pictures from the weekend:
High Definition at 640x480 700kbps and a gross 120MB is also available but email me if you want to download it (it's so big it would blow my web host allowances if I let it loose to some of you downloading lunatics!)
|
|||||||||||||
| Lands End to John'o'Groats June 2003 | |||||||||||||
yeah...
 we did it
again... it was just as fantastic...
those highland routes are still probably the best roads I have ever ridden in the UK. and Rich looked like this (on my old ZX9R):
|
|||||||||||||
| BOL D'OR September 2002 - Nevers Magny Cours (France - as if you hadn't guessed) | |||||||||||||
| Favourite quotes:
"There's a lovely cake shop in Rouen" Rob Diary of a recovering revaholic Thursday 12th September Left Home... buzzed down to Portsmouth on the A32... met Cab, Brian and Rob... got in queue for Le Havre Ferry.. Gary called and said he was in the queue and but couldn't find us... we looked for him... Gary realised he was in the queue for the wrong Ferry and was going to Cherbourg... we chuckled quite a lot... Gary switched Ferries and joined us... boarded... drunk some beer... laid on floor and slept. Friday 13th September Awoke to sounds of ships siren and pre-dawn French seagulls... dodgy P&O fried breakfast... rumbled out of Le Havre in the dark early morning light... I was looking around trying to find which way the buggers were going, Cab was looking dark, menacing and determined, Brian didn't care where he was going as long as he could hoik a few large ones on the way, Gary didn't care where he was going as long as his engine didn't explode on route and Rob was looking for a second breakfast as it had already been nearly 15 minutes since his last meal... off to Paris via a (*cough*) alternative route... arrived and assumed position sitting in access road that we were sure wouldn't be used... we were wrong... met up with Eric (aka Jacque Cousteau) and his bird - Sandy... we were all impressed by Erics tres-bien silver 955i... flew down various N Roads... stopped for refuel/refreshments at a most excellent MAG type place... lots of high speed runs... Rob had a mad five minutes and saw off some cheeky jap-bikes with a 165mph blast... Brian didn't notice because he was too busy cackling into his helmet while trying to pull wheelies in 6th... Sandy broke her land speed record when Eric signalled too calm down but she read the signal as a 'gun it' instruction... cruised into Magny Cours and found a nice calm camping spot... parked bikes in a line... pitched tents around them... Rob scared everybody by taking his shirt off... wandered into the village for a few beers... drunk beer... some more beer... had a look around the stalls selling BolDor stuff... back to bar for more beer... Rob bought an exceedingly dodgy blue sweat shirt... watched the stunt biking on the start/finish line... strolled back to camp at aprox midnight... which leads us into the early hours of the morning... Saturday 14th September back to camp... discovered that our calm camping spot had turned into a scene from a Mad Max movie... bikes everywhere... and I mean everywhere... tents of all shapes and sizes and lots of nutters revving their bikes too death because it sounded good... we all agreed that this was very silly and to quote cab "it isn't big and it isn't clever"... wandered around the campsite watching all the loonies revving their bikes into the red line... engine cut out being hit each time... big noise... big flames out of exhaust... we all repeated the chant of 'it's not big and it's not clever'... we went back to camp got our bike keys out and revved the nuts off our own bikes whilst chanting "Fantastic! Look how big and clever I am"... eventually sanity returned and we all stumbled into our tents... earplugs in... drunken slumber shortly followed... 3:00am I'm awoken by neighbouring Froggy blokes revving their R1 to the stops so that it shot out big flames and snap, crackled and popped next to my tent... right next to my tent... I wrapped my leather jacket around my head and hoped that my ears had stopped bleeding by the morning... 3:30am awoken again by one of the same froggy blokes falling on top of my tent... whacked him around the head a few times... put the tent back up and went back to sleep (sleep is not really an accurate description but it's a pain typing "intermittent snoozing being woken by exploding engines, french/swiss/dutch drinking songs, exhaust banging, frozen toes and empty beer bottles bouncing off the tent walls")... 7am... give up trying to sleep... get up... Rob is up and about stumbling around the camp... gradually the T595'ers come back to life and stagger down to the washroom... less said about the toilets the better... coffee... pain o'chocolate... cold Tartiflette is purchased, studied and sensibly declined... Cab eats it anyway... watch some super stock racing... wander around stalls looking for stuff to buy... go to start/finish line in preparation for start of race... I'm despatched back to camp to get camera and to move my tent away from motorcycle exhaust gallery... An hour later and I'm still at camp and now drinking Ricard with Froggy blokes from last night... Luckily Gary comes back to rescue me... grab a crate of beers and head back to watch the running start of the BolDor... sit and watch first couple of hours of race and drink beer in the sunshine... stagger back to camp and are surprised to find that tents and bikes are still there... evening comes and, for a a change, we wander down to the campsite village to drink some more beer... accompanied by the pop-pop-bang-bang-Vroooom chorus... watch various drunken antics involving motorcycle engines, minimotos, trail bikes, standalone engines on blocks being revved to destruction, exhaust systems made by plastic guttering, burnouts, wheelies, stoppies and every other form of motorcycle madness... Rob starts the age old post-beer cry of 'KeeeyBab"... wander down to kebab vans... Rob vanishes... French blokes are wandering around with a minimoto engine... revving it.. squirting petrol into the exhaust... we all laugh at the flames... hardly dangerous at all... more beer is consumed... Cab has a dance with a strange drunken French chap... tartiflette suddenly looks inviting... eat tartiflette, drink beer and watch angry tartiflette bloke... anticipated fight never happens... Rob re-appears holding a fake pit lane pass that he had got from some other dodgy brits... it worked though... to celebrate his return we get another round of beers... finally stagger back to camp... much quieter night this time... collapse and pass out... Sunday 15th September usual early morning staggering, scratching, grunting, farting and belching... Cab gets up far to early and rides into Nevers (probably to buy some French porno mags)... coffee down at outer village... watch racing from various vantage points... After translation skills ala Eric I manage to get a Triumph logo stitched to my leathers... Watch end of race, sitting in the sunshine with a few cold tins of Kronenbourg... Pizza for lunch in central village... wander back to camp to watch Eric and Sandy leave... tears, kisses and fond farewells... stand around looking at swiftly emptying campsite and decide to go back and get some more beer... Rob decides to have a siesta... we decide to drink beer... laugh at drunken Swiss guys... Gary has scary moment with large swiss guy with bushy moustache... bump into Johnnie and Ian... drink more beer... all stagger back to camp and decide it's a great idea to make a bonfire and burn all the left over wood from other peoples fires... we discover that Cab is a pyromaniac... Johnnie likes to burn plastic chairs... Gary asks Johnnie "was your bike a wreck when you bought it"... drink more beer... burn everything in sight.. wood... trash... tables... Cab uses the immortal words of "Je Voudre le Log"... he gets it... we burn it... drink all the beer... pass out... Monday 16th September Up and about early... I ride down to Johnnie and Ian's tent to awaken them with the joyous sound of a Hinkley Triple... we all leave the site at aprox 9am... while detouring for petrol we lose Johnnie and Ian... while following map Leader Rob he decides that he's on a mission and races off into the sunset... confusion reigns for a while... we stop for lunch and a well earned 'clean lavatory' episode... some fantastic back roads out to Le Mans... through Le Mans and north towards Caene... Gary vanishes while crossing the Bermuda Roundabout... swift, land speed record racing up to Cherbourg... meet up with missing Bol Dor companions... onto ferry... and back home. The end.... until NEXT YEAR!
|
|||||||||||||
| BOL D'OR 2002 VIDEO (courtesy of Rob and his drunken camcorder) | |||||||||||||
| During one evening of motorcycle engine
abuse, backfires, rev limiters, flaming exhausts and bang-bang-banging
Rob got his camcorder out. Sit back, wait for
the download (it's about 5.7Mb and 5 minutes long) turn on the volume
and enjoy some midnight
motorcycle anarchy Remember kids - It's not big and it's not clever
|
Eric with his pride and
joy silver 955i - banging, popping and snarling